Highway Commission approves road work bidsThe Arkansas State Highway Commission has approved a bid for improvements to a roadway in Johnson and Pope Counties, according to Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) officials. The purpose of the project is to reconstruct tourist information center facilities for both I-40 eastbound and westbound lanes at Big Piney. Crow Paving, Inc. of Morrilton was awarded the contract at $3,595,187.55. Construction is scheduled to be...

Committee recommends CM for fire stationMembers of the Russellville City Council’s Finance Committee voted 2-1 during a recent meeting to recommend VEI be selected as the construction manager for the new Central Fire Station project. Aldermen Freddie Harris and Robert Wiley approved the recommendation. Alderman Bill Eaton opposed the decision. “I don’t agree with a construction manager,” Eaton explained. “The engineering (firm) is looking at March 1 as a possible start date with wha...

Community photo: Pottery Worx speaks to LionsLion Mike Smith (left) introduced Friendship Community Care Art and Business Development manager Amy Miller at a recent club meeting. Miller told Lions about the subsidiary, Pottery Worx. Pottery Worx’s mission is to promote community integration for people with developmental disabilities by providing therapeutic, hands-on training and allowing those people to express themselves through the creation of pottery. The Pottery Worx workshop and st...

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THE COURIER / SubmittedThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Council gets aquatic center updateRepresentatives of ETC Architects and Van Horn Construction updated the Russellville City Council on the proposed $5.75 million aquatic center project during a meeting last week at City Hall. Some parts of electrical and plumbing designs are 100 completed, aldermen learned from ETC project manager William R. “Bill” Andrews. A lot of time has been spent on the design of the structure itself, he said. “The building has been rotated 180 degrees s...

Baby boomers still the spine of independent book sellingNEW YORK — In 1974, Gayle Shanks was a 23-year-old idealist raised on the activism of the previous decade and anxious to make a difference herself. So she opened a bookstore. “Books had changed my life and I assumed they could change other people’s lives as well,” says Shanks, whose Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, is now among the country’s leading independent sellers. “I really imagined this as a place where people would come and ...

RadioShack gift card balances can be successfully recoveredLITTLE ROCK — Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced that a settlement has been reached with the former retailer, RadioShack, which will allow holders of the company’s gift cards to file claims seeking to recover the unused balance on their cards. Consumers who have unused RadioShack gift cards with a balance may visit oldradioshackgiftcards.com to read about the claims process and obtain a claim form, which they can submit electr...

Board honors CowgerThe Russellville Regional Airport Commission paid tribute to pilot and commissioner Phil Cowger and welcomed Phil Carruth back to the board during its final meeting of 2015 on Wednesday night. Cowger, who lost his life in a Oct. 30 plane crash at the base of Crow Mountain, was remembered as more than just a pilot. Cowger attended his last meeting as commissioner the day before the tragedy which also claimed the lives of Julie Lefevre, Robert H...

AHTD gets $20 million for projectsThe Arkansas State Highway Commission approved more than $20 million in funding to applicants for Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program, and Recreational Trails Program (RTP) projects in Arkansas. The TAP is a Federal-aid program established in 2013 that allows eligible sponsors to apply for funding to construct sidewalks and trails for pedestrians, bicyclists and other non-motorized forms of transport...

Organization plans to feed kids Dec. 19While most students are excited about a break from school for the holidays, there are hundreds of children in our community who spend the break worried about where their next meal will come from. In Pope County, 1 of 4 children are considered food insecure, and these students rely heavily on free meals provided during the school day. To ensure that these children do not go hungry, River Valley Food 4 Kids (RVF4K) will provide food packages fro...

Facebook: U.S. presidential race is top topic of the yearSAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. won’t elect a president until next year but the debate over the crowded field of candidates jostling for the Oval Office emerged as the hottest topic on Facebook this year. The race for the Democratic and Republican party nominations eclipsed an outpouring of emotions over deadly attacks, strife, social issues and disasters. The rankings released Wednesday open a window into the cultural mindset by analyzing how freque...

Housdan receives award at Christmas TeaThe annual Christmas Tea event took place on Monday in the cafeteria of Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Russellville. The Christmas Tea event is hosted by Saint Mary’s staff to honor all of the members of Saint Mary’s Volunteer Auxiliary that volunteer at the hospital throughout the year, and one volunteer is presented with the Volunteer of Excellence Award. Many members of the Saint Mary’s staff, including Saint Mary’s CEO Jim Davidso...

Campbell receives Patriotic Employer awardPope County 911 and OEM Director Jim Campbell (left of center) was awarded the Patriotic Employer award for his support of one of his employees, Samuel Evans (right of center), who was deployed to Afghanistan from 2013-14. This award is given to a limited few across the state each year for their contribution to national security and protecting liberty and freedom by supporting employee participation in America’s National Guard and Reserve Forc...

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THE COURIER / Joshua MashonThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Little Rock approves increase in hotel taxLITTLE ROCK — Little Rock city leaders have approved a 2-cent increase on hotel taxes and plan to ask voters to dedicate that money for improvements at the Arkansas Arts Center. The Little Rock Board of Directors voted unanimously Tuesday to approve two separate 1-cent increases on the tax levied on hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts and short-term vacation rentals. The city wants to take out up to $37.5 million in bonds to pay for the improve...

Audit finds former education group treasurer stole $78KFARMINGTON — An audit report says a former treasurer for the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative wrote checks to herself and family members totaling about $78,000 over a 17-year period. The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the audit was released during a superintendents meeting Tuesday. Cooperative Director Charles Cudney says the discovery was made in September during an annual audit of the organization’s finances...

Senators place hold on Energy nomineeLITTLE ROCK — Arkansas’ two Republican senators say they will place a hold on a confirmation vote for a U.S. Department of Energy nominee because of their concerns over a proposed wind-energy transmission line that would cross the state. U.S. Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton said Wednesday they will place a hold on the confirmation vote for Victoria Wassmer, who is President Barack Obama’s nominee for the department’s undersecretary for manag...

For some, the older the smartphone, the betterNEW YORK — Between splashy launches, lavish new-phone offers (get a free HDTV on activation!) and frequent software updates that slow down your old handset, it sometimes feels like the entire technology industry is pushing you to buy the latest smartphone. Yet some holdouts resist. Take Zak Sommerfield, 35, a software analyst in New York, who has hung onto his LG Delight flip phone for five years, even though his friends and co-workers make fu...

IRS: Warrant needed to use tracking technologyWASHINGTON — Internal Revenue Service criminal investigators will not continue to use cellphone-tracking technology without first seeking a warrant, the IRS commissioner told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday. Commissioner John Koskinen said his agency is drafting a policy to abide by the Justice Department’s guidance on using the technology, which simulates cellphone towers to trick nearby phones into revealing their locations. The gui...

Facebook CEO to give away most of moneySAN FRANCISCO — Talk about birth announcements: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife say they’ll devote nearly all their wealth — roughly $45 billion — to solving the world’s problems in celebration of their new baby daughter, Max. Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, gave birth to a 7-pound, 8-ounce daughter last week. But the couple didn’t put out the news until Tuesday, when Zuckerberg posted it on Facebook, of course. In the same post, ...